Wednesday

The Purge Trailer Analysis



Beginning (0:04 - 0:25)


The beginning of the trailer portrays how the American world was perfect. The use of the sunset with the idealistic happy family silhouettes demonstrates this. A romantic scene was also displayed among one of the cuts which displayed heterosexual love and this could commute to the audience that it's a time where people are happy in their relationships.The scenes of the adults wearing casual clothes shows how relaxed and content they are with life which is accompanied by facial expressions such as laughter and smiles to show that they're happy. An establishing shot of the neighbourhood with the sunset shows that it's a peaceful time and it's a perfect world in their sight of the audience as well. The editing uses quite a few inter-titles to give facts about the perfect world that's being portrayed which is accompanied by the calm sound of the piano playing a few keys with a small interval each time it changes onto a different scene. The piano usually comes under the music genre for classical since classic music can be quite soothing and calm; making the audience feel that it really is a perfect world.

(0:31 - 1:10)

The start for this section shows the watershed. This is where there is a turning point in the plot. How everything that was once perfect; comes at a price (meaning there needs to be some sort of sacrifice). This is demonstrated through CCTV footage of clips with people getting killed; arson and gun shooting (linking the past event with what's going to happen to the present-day). The follow up scenes after the footage clips; links with the father's explanation to his son as to why the event happens (which is also letting the audience know as well). The son questions his parents as to why don't they kill anyone and his question becomes a voiceover for the next scene of (supposedly) his parents gearing up with weapons which creates a sense of irony since his parents respond with the answer that they don't feel the need to kill anyone.

The voiceover of the "annual report" for the purge occurs which then shows various side-view and front close-up shots for each of the family members gathered in the living room. Each face expressing a similar motion to the next. And in-between each shot of the faces is a establishing shot of different parts of the city, demonstrating how empty it is. It could've been seen as peaceful but the eerie sound from the report makes it creepy; making each scene a taunting-gesture to the audience that something is about to happen (making everything worse). There is loads of dip-to-black being used when the scene goes from a family member's close-up to an establishing shot of the empty city.


(1:52 - To End)

At the beginning of this section, it's the start of the build-up to the montage. The bass-sound creates a sort of heart-beat sound as it starts to build up. The bass sound is accompanied with choir-singing at a high-pitch. It starts off a bit quiet at first then as the inter-title comes up (sort of the marker for the start of the montage) the singing becomes louder throughout the whole montage. There's barely any words said but there's loads of sound effects such as a 'shhling' when seeing someone un-sheath a knife and gunshots.

At the end of the montage, the man says "everything is gonna be okay" and the woman responds that "nothing is ever going to be okay again" which is then followed up by a glitch noise for the inter-title then the title for the film comes up with the credits and social media.

There's a sense of polar opposite being demonstrated since at the beginning it was a perfect world and at the end everything goes wrong; with the families' ideal perfect world destroyed within one night.

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